1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an attachable member-recognition device and an ink-jet printer provided with the same, wherein it is possible to recognize information about an attachable member which is detachably attached, for example, to main body portions of various electric apparatuses, electronic apparatuses, and mechanical apparatuses. When the attachable member is, for example, an ink cartridge of the ink-jet printer, it is possible to recognize, for example, the color of the ink and the volume of the ink. Alternatively, when the attachable member is a printing paper tray, it is possible to recognize, for example, the size of the printing paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink cartridge-detecting apparatus has been hitherto known as an example of those capable of detecting information about an ink cartridge (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-172796). The ink cartridge-detecting apparatus is provided, for example, for an ink-jet printer, which makes it possible to recognize information about the an ink cartridge when the ink cartridge is attached to a carriage.
The following method is adopted to recognize the information about the ink cartridge by means of the ink cartridge-detecting apparatus. That is, when the ink cartridge is attached to the carriage, and the carriage is moved in the main scanning direction, then a bar code, which is printed on a bar code label affixed to a side surface of the ink cartridge, is read by a photosensor, and the information about the ink cartridge is recognized on the basis of the scanned bar code.
The bar code is conventionally known, which includes a plurality of black and white bars printed on the label. For example, the information about the ink color is allotted to seventh and eighth areas of first to eighth areas (digits) of the bar code. The setting is made such that the ink color is “black” when the colors of the respective bars in the “seventh area and eighth area” are “black, black”. The setting is made such that the ink color is “cyan” when the colors of the respective bars in the “seventh area and eighth area” are “black, white”. Further, the setting is made such that the ink color is “magenta” in the case of “white, black”, and the ink color is “yellow” in the case of “white, white”.
However, in the conventional ink cartridge-detecting apparatus described above, the bar code is read by the photosensor. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the reflection type photosensor which has both of a light-emitting section and a light-receiving section. Therefore, the structure is complicated, and the cost is expensive.
In the case of the bar code, when the black bars and the white bars are printed on the first to eighth areas of the bar code respectively, for example, only two pieces of information, which correspond to the binary value of the black bar or the white bar, can be set for one area.
In other words, when three or more ink colors, for example, four ink colors are set with the bar code, then it is necessary to use, for example, the two areas of “seventh area, eighth area” as in the exemplary conventional technique described above, and it is necessary to use the relatively large number of areas. Therefore, the cost is expensive corresponding thereto, for example, for a control unit of the ink cartridge-detecting apparatus.